Kei and I watched G. I. Joe with Joe-e and Aldwin yesterday, Saturday, at Gateway.

[Spoilers ahead?]

Some thoughts:

1) Mike already pointed this out last week: ice is not supposed to sink. So I kinda caught someone utter "tons of ice and metal" when the icepack was blown up. They did say that lots of tunnels and stuff ran through the ice. Is that enough metal to bring down humungous chunks of ice?

2) A lot of movements are messed up! Skidding a speeding jetski to a halt within just a couple of meters?

8) Maybe it was because I watched The Ballad of G.I. Joe before the movie, but I was kinda biased against the movie cast. Come on, it's hard to top The Ballad.

9) I agree with Kei's comment: "ang daming olats moments ng G.I. Joes!" For a team of elite soldiers they sure screw up a lot.

10) Great action! But it didn't feel one bit like G.I. Joe. You could've called them "Alpha Team" (like they did half the time) all-throughout, and it would've still worked. No tinge of nostalgia nor patriotism was invoked.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

(I wrote this 5 days ago today, way back in August 8, 2009, Saturday. I just saved it as a draft, and I only remembered to publish it today. *rolls eyes*)

1) A lot of our friends still haven't watched it! (Kei's officemate's friend who stays in Singapore recorded the TFC broadcast and uploaded it YouTube! Here are links to Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)

2) Kei and I missed it! August 7, 2009, Friday, was the date of Iselle's wedding, which I wouldn't miss: Kei was singing (for the bridal march and the contract signing)!

3) My immediate family missed it! As early as 9am, something went wrong with the local cable provider (in LB). They had to do some repairs for most of the day. Kuya Paul quickly thought of buying a TV antenna, but they still didn't get good reception. They had to settle for extremely grainy images. They tried watching it streamed online but, lo and behold!, it was the perfect time for the Internet connection to go erratic! Wel spent a lot of time calling the PLDT hotline yet again.

...

So I need a HIGH quality version of our episode, if only for the sole reason of my parents' eyes not being able to take poor quality streaming versions. (As of August 10, 2009, Monday, my boss gave me a DVD of our episode that he recorded at home! Thanks, Sir Steven!)

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Just because I felt like going out, I went to Robinson's at around 6pm, right after I asked Ma if we needed anything from the supermarket.

Since I wasn't in any hurry, I tried to think of what I could do or where I could go to pass the time. I then remembered that, after several years, the arcade is back at the lowest level of the mall, so I went to have a peek.

It was.. mm.. nothing special. I walked around and saw it only had 1 Tekken machine that supports 2 players, and it was Tekken 5. There was this Tekken Tag Tournament machine, but it only had 1 set of controls. I went to the token booth and bought some at 6-pesos a-piece. I played with a bunch of tall kids who I'd guess were in high school. After my last game, one of them went up to me and asked me a question I didn't get at first. I looked up to his face and he repeated the question:

"Kuya, kayo yung sa Vega dati?"

I remember the guy! :-o

"Kami yung mga bata dun dati."

It was one of the twins that used to hang out with Ford back when the arcade at Vega Centre was still in business!

I left shortly after. I went to the supermarket, and on my way to pay at the cashier, another familiar face passed in front of me. It was our History I professor back in our very first semester in UPLB, Prof. Diestro, looking *exactly* how he did 11 years ago!

It was pleasant to have seen faces I didn't really take notice of after so many years, especially since these past days made me get into a reminiscing kind of mood.

Due to ABS-CBN's near-whole-day coverage of the late, former-President Corazon Aquino (R.I.P.), GAME K N B? was not aired today. This means that our episode will be aired one day later, on August 7, 2009, Friday.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I just took my first spoonful of lunch in the office pantry, when Wilma called (received by May) to say that a Red Ribbon delivery just arrived at our building's reception area. I was pretty sure someone was trying to kid me. I went back to our office and asked Wilma about it, and she just said that that's all she knew. Still very much startled, I got my wallet and went down to see what the deal was.

Sure enough, there was this Red Ribbon box on top of the receptionist's desk. I approached it and saw the delivery man hand over some papers that I should sign. It was indeed addressed to me! I looked at the other sheets and saw the order form: it was from Kei! I was laughing in my head! The delivery man pointed to an envelope attached to the box and I took out the note inside. Kei says the cake's an early treat for me and my office buddies. I was feeling reeeaaally giddy on my way back up!

That's a Coffee Walnut Bavarian from Red Ribbon. It was very delicious! it wasn't too sweet and the flavors were mild but still distinct.

Currently, I use the combination of Mechanical Plurk and Plurk's connection to Facebook. The bulk of my online friends are on Twitter, Plurk and Facebook, so I feel that that's enough to cover any updates I make. :)

My usage is:

a) When I'm at work and on my workstation, I post status updates on Twitter, which get posted on Plurk, then on Facebook.

b) When I'm on the road, I txt phPlurk, who posts my update on Plurk, who in turn posts it on Facebook.

Yeah, I know Twitter's left out when I'm mobile -- GPRS access is still usually clunky in the SLEX. Sadly, Twitter's SMS interface isn't available locally yet.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Kei and I had a GREAT monthly celebration dinner at John and Yoko in Greenbelt 5. Unfortunately, we don't have any pics of our visit. Inee recommended the place some time last year, but we kinda forgot about it.

I was reminded of it during one of our lunches at the office pantry, with Joe-e recommending a particular dish. I suggested the place to Kei and we were excited about having a new restaurant to try.

We arrived at around 8pm, and I got worried when I saw that the place looked packed. I was still a bit apprehensive even after we were told that there were seats for two. We were seated at the corner nearest the kitchen, and it felt cramped. It was a square table, with one wooden chair on one side, and a short bench that was against the wall. I sat beside Kei on the bench. The seat, although cushioned, wasn't that comfortable. It felt like either the bench was too high (without a back-rest! the wall doesn't count!) or the table was too low.

Our drinks came first. We were milkshake fans, and we've been craving for Cafe Breton's chocolate milkshake for some time, so we opted to try the Choco Godzilla. It was more expensive, and it almost got it right, and our choco milkshake craving was solved. We also had one of those colored iced teas, the blue one. Having different varieties of iced tea was interesting (someone mentioned that each of the red, green and blue iced teas were flavored differently: lime, calamansi and dalandan, although I can't remember which was which).

Next up was the Big Star Salad. It was good, though we've had better. =p

On to the main dish!

First, a bit of backtracking. The entire time we were walking from SM Makati to Greenbelt 5, I was trying to recall the dish that Joe-e recommended. But I couldn't. When we were browsing the menu right after we got seated, I laughed a bit, and I pointed to the menu, suddenly remembering what the dish was, the Japaella. Kei asked what was so funny: the name of the dish that kept popping in my head earlier was Japancit.

Anyway. *ehem* The Japaella. I loved it! We were totally missing World Topps' Paella Valenciana, which has been phased out of their menu for several months now. Having the Japaella was one heck of a way to kick that other paella out of my taste buds' memory! It had just enough toppings of shrimp (they could have shelled them completely, though), chicken teriyaki and chorizo, and the rice had just the right level of savoriness. They say it was good for 3 to 4 persons but (hey, I was starving!) you seem to forget how much you've eaten once you see your plate is empty and the serving plate isn't.

We didn't get any dessert when we first ordered, and it was a smart decision! We were stuffed!

We wiled the time by watching the other customers not finish their food, the waiters passing our table-by-the-kitchen, and a couple of the staff preparing sushi.

After scanning through reviews of the place online just a while ago, I regret not having any pictures taken! When we left the place, my lame excuse for it was that it was too dim anyway..

I also didn't regret it too much, since we agreed that we'd definitely come back.

Thursday, Feb 12

We watched Push -- it was good! It had the same feel as Jumper and Wanted. But as Vic said, the plot lacked "the bigger picture". I particularly liked the expert Mover's fighting style. Dakota Fanning isn't as cute as she used to be, though.. =p

Saturday, Feb 14

We spent the day at Kei's house. =) I was supposed to reformat their PC, but my installer CD copies were busted. That sucked. We made mango-banana shakes a while later, and that cheered me up. =)

They had a Valentine's Day event at their church, and Kei was hosting a game segment. It was Family Feud, and we spent the previous weekend making the game board that would be shown by a projector. I took it as an opportunity to learn more about jQuery (yup, the thingie was done in HTML and JavaScript). =D

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Browse through Nikki's Reader Shared Items (feel sad that there's only a few of them)

and:

Check Nikki's Reader Shared Items (feel sad that there's nothing new just when I thought I needed them most - to help me procrastinate)

...

I'm sorry that I let you down.. =p

But I'm not that sorry since I've cut down on sharing stuff intentionally. I've, so far, succeeded in staying away from Mike's Shared Stuff (which has also shrunk significantly, recently =p) during workdays. I've also unsubscribed from a number of feeds since December.

I'm trying to keep off the flooder/spammer label I've had last year.. =D

I tested the latest iRShell release's new feature: TV Out for the PSP Slim!

Before the iRShell update, I tested using the FuSa plugin. FuSa worked well enough for all the homebrew apps I tried and for some games. The biggest disappointment with FuSa was that it couldn't handle Tekken! Tekken was extremely slow..

The news of AhMan returning to update iRShell came out last week, but I only had the time to test it now. And Tekken works with almost no lag!!! I've yet to see how multiplayer mode fares, though..

One thing FuSa had over iRShell, however, is full-screen display on the TV.

---

I would have like to show how an arcade match performed, but I was home alone and nobody could hold my cellphone for me while I played. My phone had to be held quite close to the TV for the display to show some detail. But the video showing decent framerate is good enough for me (FuSa's framerate really sucked!). =D

The only way this should be excused is when it's on its way to actually get registered. But I've spotted "For Registered" *plates* on lots of vehicles stuffed with passengers and baggage -- were they going to camp at the LTO?

~~~

It's been pointed out by a lot: words keep getting shortened, these days.

Not that I don't abbreviate ever, and I admit that I sometimes find it amusing ("Ped Xing"? Really? Who thought of that?!).

But, sometimes, it just gets in the way of understanding what you read.

You get used to it, too. I remember, just a couple of weeks ago, reading "how apt" as "how apartment"..

~~~

Aren't you annoyed that Wolverine's claws in cartoons are USELESS in combat?

He's supposed to be this violent, uncontrollable beast, but when he's supposedly on a rampage and he's about to swipe at someone, that guy catches his hands?!

Sifting through the stuff that have accumulated in my pants' back pocket, I found a sheet of paper whose contents I wrote during the last days of 2008, after I woke up feeling extraordinarily refreshed. Written all over it was:

===================

2008-12-28

I HAD A DREAM

- I was in a light mood.

- I watched events with interest.

- I could act childishly, speak tactlessly without any regret.

- I could run out the door without my stuff being fully-packed, and I would be skipping because I haven't put on my shoes all the way.

- I would skid over gravel and sand with my new shoes and, partially stumbling, I'd get my arms all covered in dust -- even if I'd just washed my hands less than a minute ago.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

It's the New Year and recap posts are in season! =D I've already read Jae's, Cel's and Peppy's.

I haven't written anything in months, so this should make up for all those missing posts. =p

~~~

Weird Work Hours

In the middle of last January, I was assigned to work the mid-shift at the office. It was an interesting idea at the time.

The benefits of working mid-shift were obvious from the start. What wasn't obvious was that those benefits didn't really suit me since sometimes I'd rather do without them, and that the un-obvious cons would usually prevent me from doing something I like.

I didn't have to wake up early, since I only needed to arrive at the office at 2pm. I also didn't have to contend with the rush hour crowds when commuting to and from work. When I did wake up early, I then had time to do some cleaning up in our apartment. I could also pass by the malls that have just opened, so they still weren't crowded.

However, if I got to work late, it also meant that I was going home late (most of the time, early the next day). I wasn't able to pass by the malls at night anymore (which was when the arcade players were flocking). I was also spending more on taxi rides to our apartment when I get out of the office at 2am or so -- the cost of one taxi ride would have covered jeep/bus rides for almost the entire week. I wasn't able to join movie nights-out, dinner get-togethers and geek events/meet-ups. Kei and I had to both go out of our way just to have dinner dates! Breakfast dates were interesting at first but, after a dozen of those, I really longed for the more casual dinner dates where we didn't have to hurry to our offices afterward!

Link Sharing

2008 was the year of link spamming and flooding Google Reader shared items! Sometimes, I just.. get carried away. Apologies to those who have now opted to ignore all my shared items.

Raving About Ruby

I learned Ruby (and Rails). I felt very comfortable writing Ruby code. I found it more intuitive to write with than Java!

Credit goes to Caesar who first introduced me to Ruby almost two years ago. That eased my re-introduction and my actual immersion to the language. He also showed me a lot of tips and tricks and Ruby coding idioms, which I wouldn't have figured out by myself. I tend to go through a very steep learning curve when I'm forced to view things some other way.

Linux Workstation

Along with the new programming language, I also got the chance to feel at home with Linux. In order to avoid any problems working on our Ruby on Rails project, we were asked to work on Linux, since there were stuff that we needed that didn't have workable Windows ports. We needed Linux just to make the darned thing work.

My teammate Aries, who has been working for around a year on the project, took it upon himself to setup my Linux workstation. He installed XUbuntu on it. He preferred it since its XFCE desktop manager was specifically made to maintain a small memory footprint. It was the first time I heard about it -- but, now, I love it! The first thing I did was to make the interface work for me. For an Ubuntu installation, it now looks too much like Windows XP. =p

One thing I got from being given a Linux workstation is that I got to keep my Windows one, so I have 2 PC at work! I feel spoiled. =p I hope I can still keep 'em, despite that previous project being over. =D

PSP

On February, I finally got my last pay -- four months after I resigned (that's relatively quicker than usual, mind you.. XD)! I awarded myself a PSP. =D

I mentioned a couple of months before that Tekken by itself makes the PSP worth buying. There was a time when I was really serious about that. =p However, after several rounds of reviewing the PSP, I found that it being a well-rounded portable entertainment device was MY reason to get one.

Tekken 6 At The Arcade

Having the malls real close and on only a slight detour when going to work means that I can have quickies at the arcade!

I was able to get back to playing Tekken at the arcades. Luckily, the newest installment, Tekken 6, was only more than a month old. I saw other players still getting familiar with the new stuff, just I as I was. We were learning off of each other and that made it, not only more enjoyable, but more effective in training ourselves.

Gimiks And Reunions

Despite my new schedule, I wanted to find the time to go out. Since I'm not free on weeknights, that means that I can only go to get-togethers on weekends. But since I stay in Makati on weekdays, I try to reserve a day to spend at home. That drastically cut gimilk time. Special events were planned a couple of weeks ahead of time, so I won't be too stressed out trying to figure out last-minute schedule changes.

I had to skip some get-togethers that I wanted to go to but, overall, I still got enough gimik time to not feel shackled by my work sked.

I'm really glad I got to go to:

1) lots of kiddie birthday parties! We didn't have kiddie parties when we were young! I don't think I could remember all the kids we partied with, but I could surely remember:

b) our 4th-year high school section -- it turns out that these guys actually got together quite frequently!

c) our high school batch's reunion, 10 years after graduation! -- I missed a lot of the people I hoped to see there, including PAL and Joshua. I got to see Pierre and Ivan again! It was amusing when I realized that people still seemed to be so much like how they were back in high school. =p

3) personal meet-ups of online groups

a) PhRUG -- this seems like cheating on my part, because the only 2 meet-ups I attended were both held in our office..

b) The Mafia Gang -- this group is basically an augmented Dota Gang. However, I was only able to join their meet-ups for a couple of months, when GameCrab was still newly-discovered.

I opted out of a lot of other invitations from different groups. A group that sticks out as one I declined too often is our LB barkada. Sorry guys, better luck this new year. Everything was just bad timing, as meet-ups always ended up being scheduled over my prior commitments.

Vacations

I have to say that vacations are now an important part of my year. I can't imagine how dull and bored I would feel if I don't get a fun and relaxing vacation within a whole year!

I still haven't caught up with the number of places Kei has been to. Her previous office outings have taken her to Boracay and Dakak! But as long as we're together when I'm vacationing then that's fine by me! =D The core of our vacation group include Kei's college friends and former officemates.

I had two beach trips: Camiguin in June, and Batangas in November.

Our CDO-Camiguin vacation was the longest I ever had, at 5 days and 4 nights. We all felt that we left too early. =D

Our Baguio trip reinforced my new vacation motto to not hurry, to take things slow. Vacations are for relaxing and you shouldn't worry that much about not being able to visit every tourist spot no matter how famous it is. =)

Going to Tali Beach in Batangas was a one-overnight office outing. It was Kei sitting this one out. There were lots of food and booze, I was so drunk I fell asleep on the floor. My officemates are good people for not taking pics. Unlike some other people. XD

Plurk

Plurk is a micro-blogging service, where you can post short messages that other people can reply to. It takes away your urge to write long paragraphs as you can only post messages up to 140 characters. I'd say it's a cross of Twitter and Multiply, as those two are the most popular status update and social blogging services among my friends.

When not managed properly, a sufficiently-networked Plurk account is a very effective time sink. You have to have it in you to use the Mute and Mark All As Read functionalities, especially if you have more important things to do (personally, I don't use the Mark All As Read thingie.. I just put off reading some Plurks until I get home). Also, beware opening it at work.

Sore Eyes++

I got sore eyes just as December began. Sure, I had two weeks off of work. But I was advised to stay at home! I always said that if you get the chance to skip work, it better not be because you're sick.

It sucked to not be able to stare at a monitor for long without my eyes aching and tearing up. It sucked being contagious -- I couldn't go out to meet with Kei!

Then there's the stupid complication where my cornea got affected and my left eye's vision has become clouded. It's gotten better since then, but until now I still can't say it has recovered 100%.

Concerts

Kei and I went to Gary V's previous anniversary concert (held on May every year), but we had to skip this year's. It was regretful because this year marks his 25th. Luckily, he had a lot of follow-up performances, so we were able to catch two! =D

The first one was a short set in Glorietta's Activity Center. He was promoting his new album. We had our picture taken with Gary V! =D

That's a pic I took with my phone's camera of a newly-claimed printed pic. I sent an MMS to Kei right after I got the print. =D Ako ang inakbayan ni Gary V! =p

Near the end of his Glorietta performance, he announced that he'd still have another set of major anniversary concerts in Araneta in November -- and we had to attend that! We were lucky enough he did that extra set of concerts, and we felt a lot more grateful after his phenomenal performance! =D

The other concert I went to was, of course, the Eraserheads Reunion concert, with my high school buddies and some. Everyone knows how much that rocked.

UP Centennial

I gotta my-ah hoodie!

Yeah!

Other Achievements

1) Contact with Noel Singidas -- he didn't seem as excited as I was, though..